'Do my eyes deceive me,' said Mr Gregsbury, looking towards the speaker,
'or is that my old friend Pugstyles?'

'I am that man, and no other, sir,' replied the plump old gentleman.

'Give me your hand, my worthy friend,' said Mr Gregsbury. 'Pugstyles, my
dear friend, I am very sorry to see you here.'

'I am very sorry to be here, sir,' said Mr Pugstyles; 'but your conduct,
Mr Gregsbury, has rendered this deputation from your constituents
imperatively necessary.'

'My conduct, Pugstyles,' said Mr Gregsbury, looking round upon the
deputation with gracious magnanimity--'my conduct has been, and ever
will be, regulated by a sincere regard for the true and real interests
of this great and happy country. Whether I look at home, or abroad;
whether I behold the peaceful industrious communities of our island
home: her rivers covered with steamboats, her roads with locomotives,
her streets with cabs, her skies with balloons of a power and magnitude
hitherto unknown in the history of aeronautics in this or any other
nation--I say, whether I look merely at home, or, stretching my
eyes farther, contemplate the boundless prospect of conquest and
possession--achieved by British perseverance and British valour--which
is outspread before me, I clasp my hands, and turning my eyes to the
broad expanse above my head, exclaim, "Thank Heaven, I am a Briton!"'

The time had been, when this burst of enthusiasm would have been cheered
to the very echo; but now, the deputation received it with chilling
coldness. The general impression seemed to be, that as an explanation
of Mr Gregsbury's political conduct, it did not enter quite enough into